inside wall was erected a plain monument, with the following inscription :— "Near the outside of this wall who died May 17th, 1732. And earnestly to exhort them constantly to attend upon the Worship of God, To breed up their children in the fear of God, Without which no man shall see the Lord. at the resurrection of the Just 1." Of the two sons above mentioned, the elder was the Rev. William Lowth, afterwards prebendary of Winchester, and vicar of St. Margaret's, Rochester, and of Lewisham, in Kent: the younger was Robert, the subject of the following pages. He was born at Buriton, or, according to other authorities, in the Close of Winchester, on the 27th of No 1 The most complete edition of Lowth and Patrick's Commentaries will be generally found in conjunction with those of Arnold on the Apocrypha, and Whitby on the New Testament, in 7 vols. folio, 1731; re-edited in 1822, under the care of the Rev. J. R. Pitman, in 8 vols. 4to. Of the "Directions for the profitable reading of the Holy Scriptures," a new edition, being the sixth, with a Memoir by the Bishop, was published in 1784. This work, as well as that "On the inspiration of the Old and New Testament," was reprinted, a few years ago, with the addition of the two Assize Sermons at Winchester. vember, 1710. He was educated on the foundation of Winchester College, and there exhibited the first specimen of his poetical talent in his exquisite stanzas, written as he lay in bed during a thunder-storm; of which it will not be too much to say, that none of his subsequent writings exhibit a more fervent spirit of devotion. His next performance was the celebrated poem "On the Genealogy of Christ," as represented on the window of the College Chapel. It was written as an imposition, and published in 1729', while the author was still at school, and apparently from the preface, without his consent or knowledge; a liberty no less flattering to the youthful poet, than the high and merited applauses with which the publication was received. The same year he wrote his "Catherine Hill," which was first printed in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1753. From Winchester, Lowth was elected to a scholarship at New College, in 1730, where he took his degree of M.A. in 1737. It was during his residence at Oxford, on the continued bounty of William of Wykeham, that he conceived the design of investigating the records of his College, and preparing a Memoir of the illustrious "Founder of the two St. Mary Winton Colleges." Lowth's first office of distinction was that of Professor of Poetry, which was conferred upon him in 1741, on the resignation of his friend, 1 The editor has a copy of this edition, as well as the fair transcript shown up to the head master, Dr. Burton. The latter contains some slight variations, which appear to have been subsequently corrected; but comprises only about two-thirds of the poem. Mr. Spence'. In 1746, he published his imitation from Horace, entitled, "An Ode to the People of Great Britain;" a free paraphrase, full of spirit, and of severe reproof at the immorality of the times. This was followed by "The Judgment of Hercules," founded on the fable of Prodicus, and inserted in Mr. Spence's Polymetis. Mr. Lowth's first preferment in the Church was 1 The Rev. Joseph Spence was born in 1698, and educated at Winchester, and at New College. His "Essay on Pope's Translation of the Odyssey" procured for him the friendship of the poet, and an introduction to ecclesiastical preferment. He was elected Poetry Professor in 1728, on the resignation of the Rev. Thomas Warton, father of the accomplished brothers of that name. His account of Stephen Duck, the Wiltshire bard, was published for him by his friend Lowth, during his own absence on the continent. In 1742, he was appointed Regius Professor of History. His principal work is his Polymetis, published in 1747, fol., and frequently reprinted and abridged; besides which, he wrote accounts of the blind poet, Blacklock, and of Robert Hill, the Hebrew tailor; with other tracts. He resided principally at Byfleet, in Surrey, where he was unfortunately drowned in a canal which ran through his garden, in 1768. Anecdotes of Spence and Pope have been lately published by Messrs. Singer and Malone. It is a fact well known, that of the seven copies of verses inserted in Spence's name among the Oxford tributes to royalty, which are all reprinted in Nichols's Select Collection, the first two are by Pitt, to whom the Bishop was related by his mother's side; the two next by Rolle; and the last three by Lowth. (See Gentleman's Magazine for 1787, p. 1124; and a letter from Dr. Warton to his brother, in Dr. Wooll's Memoir, p. 279.) Those contributed by Lowth in his own name are of a much earlier date. The materials of Spence's life, in the 8th vol. of Nichols's Collection, were likewise communicated by the Bishop. 2 In 1740, Shenstone published his " Judgment of Hercules." Lowth, whose composition had long lain by, was surprised at Shenstone's announcement; and supposing it was his own poem, surreptitiously obtained by the booksellers, immediately set out for London. Mr. Graves, who quotes this anecdote in his "Recollections of Shenstone," 1788, adds, that "Dr. Lowth's poem is written in a more chaste, Mr. Shenstone's in a more florid style." C a presentation, by Bishop Hoadly, in 1744, to the rectory of Ovington, in Hampshire. In 1748, he accompanied his early friend, Mr. Legge, afterwards Chancellor of the Exchequer, who had been dispatched on an official embassy to the court of Berlin, and to whom he dedicated his "Prælectiones." In the In the following year he became acquainted with the Marquis of Hartington, whose younger brothers, Lord George and Lord Frederick Cavendish, he had attended on their travels to Turin; and who was so well pleased with the conduct and capacities of Mr. Lowth, in the treatment of his pupils, as to prove himself, from that time forward, his steady friend and patron. In 1750, Bishop Hoadly confirmed his former partiality to Mr. Lowth, by appointing him to the archdeaconry of Winchester; and again, in 1753, to the rectory of East-Woodhay, in Hampshire. It is from the latter of these years that we may date the literary celebrity of Mr. Lowth; for it was in this year that he first published his "Prælectiones Academicæ de Sacrâ Poesi Hebræorum'," which he had previously read to the students at Oxford, in his office of Poetical Professor. The subject was nearly new, and afforded ample scope to the poetical, critical, and theological attainments of the lecturer, whose success was all but 1 The first edition was in 4to. A second edition, enlarged, with annotations by Professor J. D. Michaelis, of Gottingen, appeared in 1763, in 2 vols. 8vo. The later editions have the additional notes of Rosenmuller, besides a Crewian oration, delivered in 1751. complete'. The true spirit of Hebrew poetry was now for the first time philosophically exhibited, and its peculiar characteristics pointed out, with the judgment and accuracy of a master 2. Select portions of prophecy, expressed in Latin verse of great force and elegance, add a variety to the pages of discussion, which is enhanced by appropriate allusions to profane literature; while the 1 An English translation of the first eighteen lectures, by Dr. Dodd, was inserted in the Christian's Magazine for 1766-7. But an excellent version of the whole appeared in 1787, and again in 1816, with notes by Mr. Henley and others, from the hand of Dr. George Gregory, of East Ham, Essex. An English abridgment, in the form of Letters, was published in 1792, by the Rev. Mr. Holder. Lord Aston printed, in 1811, "A selection of Psalms, in verse, illustrated with English notes, translated from Lowth's Prælectiones, &c." 2 "The Prælectiones of Lowth," says Mr. Wakefield, in a letter to Dr. Gregory, who had begged his assistance in his proposed translation," is a very pleasing and elegant work, and I suppose the best specimen in the world of the fertile improvement of a subject.""I hold them," says Dr. Parr, "to be among the very choicest Latin productions of the moderns."-Dr. Dibdin ranks the same work among the six most complete productions of English divines, each comprised in a single octavo volume. When the reader is informed that " Prettyman's Refutation of Calvinism" is another of the six, he will perhaps attach less value to the compliment. 3 These Latin versions were collected, for the use of schools, and published, with some others, by Weissenbach, at Basle, in 1783. Most of them have been also paraphrased back again into English; and among the smaller pieces of Dr. Frank Sayers, is a translation of the Επινίκιον τῶν Ἰσραηλιτῶν into Greek hexameters. + The late Dr. Townson, in his speech delivered at Oxford on the expiration of his year of proctorship, 1750, thus alludes to the Prælectiones just delivered by the Professor :-"Quem de poeticâ sacrâ sic ex cathedrâ explicantem audivimus, ut omnibus ornari rebus videretur, quæ aut naturæ munera sunt, aut instrumenta doctrinæ." "A candid and honourable testimony," adds the biographer of Townson; "the more so, because Mr. Lowth and the speaker were generally looked up to as the two first scholars in the University; a circumstance which, in ordinary minds, might have created some |